Once we entered the main hall, the extravagant beauty of the halls took me aback. From the Citadel, I’d only been able to see Queen Lilyana’s palace from afar. Tapestries of unfamiliar wars hung upon the walls, and tables were laden with gold candelabras and bowls of food. A set of double doors towered at the end, and I could only assume they led to the throne room.

We turned down a side hall, and I could smell the familiar scent of bread baking. My mouth watered at the smell and I became distracted. When I looked up, I was in an unfamiliar room with a giant wooden tub. I stared, confused, and hands reached up to touch my back and remove my garment.

I jumped backward and screamed. A small woman walked in front of me and held her hands up and to show that she meant me no harm.

Gideon gestured to the warm water. “You should wash before you meet King Tieren. You don’t want to take the chance of offending him.”

I held up my manacled hands to him and he laughed.

“No those stay on. The maid will help you.”

I waited for him to leave, but he appeared as if he was going to stay.

Well, that wouldn’t do.

“I’m not changing in front of you!” I challenged.

“You have no choice. I’m not leaving a prisoner in an unsecured room.”

“Then you leave me no choice,” I shouted in return. Turning my back on him I stepped toward the tub and before the maid could undress me, I leapt into it fully dressed, making sure to send a huge wave of soapy water sloshing over the tub and onto Gideon’s feet. His horrified expression as the water soaked his boots was enough of a reward for me. The poor maid squealed and jumped out of the way as she raced for towels to dredge up the water across the floor. I did a poor show of pretending to wash, dunking my head a few times before standing up, jumping out, and purposely re-trailing suds and water across the wooden floor.

“Okay, I’m clean. Let’s go.” It took every inch of control I had to keep from grinning.

“You good for nothing wildling. No wonder your clan lives in the mountains. You have no manners,” he seemed more put out than enraged.

“I have enough manners to not keep a king waiting, so as soon as you’re ready to escort me…or perhaps I should just go find him myself.”

I made a move toward the door, but he quickly stepped out, slammed it, and said, “Not before you take a proper bath and get dressed. I will wait here. No further.”

I started to laugh and the poor maid stood in the corner shivering, whether from fear or cold I didn’t know. Quickly, she helped me bathe and get dressed in a simple green gown. After she braided my hair, he held a mirror up to my face and I inspected the results. I had a slight bruise on my face from the altercation in my village.

“We should get this looked at,” she whispered nervously.

“Don’t waste your time. I don’t know yet if I will even survive the night.” The words came out sharper than I had anticipated, but they were sharp because they were the truth.

No matter how the meeting with the King played out, it would end very badly for one of us. But if the Elite were on guard, then there would be a good chance I wouldn’t make it out alive.

Surprisingly, I was extremely calm.

“Ah, Thalia! We finally meet.” The words came from King Tieren himself. The oddly high timbre of his voice made him seem much younger than he probably was.

I stared at the King of Sinnendor with open distrust. He was of medium build and average height, with a closely cropped sandy brown beard peppered with gray. His mouth was thin, and his teeth were even. He was, for all intents and purposes, very average looking. If he weren’t sitting on the throne, I would never have guessed him to be the King of Sinnendor.

“I would have thought you wouldn’t want to see me, especially after I was treated to a stay in the dungeon.”

“Ah you have to forgive my men. They got a little carried away. You are here as a guest, child. I mean you no harm,” he smiled making his beard twitch.

“Do you mean to tell me that—after generations of my family’s exile—you would invite me back? I find that hard to believe.”

“No, what’s hard to believe is that your father would refuse my invitation. After all, I have always asked nicely.” The king stood up and strode to a side table to pour himself a goblet of wine. He was humming under his breath. At first I didn’t recognize it, but then its melody reached my ears and I cringed. Tieren was humming a children’s song about a plague. The dissonant notes made my skin crawl, but he didn’t seem to notice its affect on me.

I used the momentary distraction to gauge my surroundings. The room was dark and stuffy, as if he were afraid to open the windows and let in the air. Incense burners hung from the marble columns clouding the air with the smell of sandalwood. The wooden throne itself was polished and inlaid with silver. The king’s standard—a silver wolf upon a black background—hung from posts above the throne. My skin prickled with irritation, noting again that it was the same standard as our own clan’s. The king even wore a silver wolf ring with emerald eyes. Every time he took a sip, the jeweled eyes seemed to taunt me, to tease me about what could have been.

Frustrated, I turned my head to look at his bodyguards. Two more of the Elite stood in the darkened shadows watching us carefully. Like Gideon, they too sported the white hair.

The king noticed my curious staring. “Ah, I see you’ve noticed my guards. Only the purest of blood serve me.” He raised his goblet of wine as if to salute them before taking the tiniest sip. “They guard that which is precious to me.”

“Which is?” I asked politely.

“Me,” he laughed. He cocked his head to the side as if listening to something and then began to whisper angrily to no one in particular. King Tieren turned his back on me and continued to whisper and sing.

I lost my patience. “Why am I here? Why did you attack my clan and kidnap me? And then you have the nerve to pretend I’m an honored guest.”

Tieren turned back around, his eyes focused on me. “Ah, now that is where you are wrong. I don’t want to kill you or your family. In fact, I keep trying to bring us closer together.” He put his goblet down and seated himself upon his throne, looking down on me through lowered lashes. I wondered briefly if he was slightly inebriated. “Every year on the same day, I send a messenger to your village for your father. And every year I receive the same answer in the form of another dead messenger. I sent more messengers, more frequently with the same result. So you see, you left me no choice. I had to resort to a more permanent summons.”

“So it is my father you want to come, not me.”

“No, this has nothing to do with your father. It has always been about you. Perhaps if I had chosen a different date to summon you, I might have received a more positive reply,” he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“I don’t understand how one day would make any difference in his answer.”

“Nothing and everything. What do you know of your mother’s family, where she came from?” he leaned forward, waiting.

His words, though harmless, began to tear a whole in my confidence. I refused to answer, instead turning my back to him.

“Ah, see? You don’t know. Or your mother never told your father. Shall I tell you about Thelonia, your mother?”